This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with our website and allow us to remember your browser. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, for analytics and metrics about our visitors both on this website and other media, and for marketing purposes. By using this website, you accept and agree to be bound by UVic’s Terms of Use and Protection of Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the above, you must not use this website.

Skip to main content
People Departments Maps Buildings Rooms A-Z University
of Victoria Apply Library Sign in Online tools Sign out Anthropology

Dr. April Nowell

Dr. April Nowell

Professor

Anthropology

Status:
On leave
Contact:
Office: COR B340 250-721-7054
Credentials:
PhD (University of Pennsylvania)
Area of expertise:
Neanderthal, Paleolithic art and archaeology, Hominin life histories, cognitive archaeology, archaeology of children, Levant and Europe

Bio

Dr. April Nowell is a Paleolithic archaeologist and Professor of Anthropology who specializes in cognitive archaeology, Paleolithic art, Neandertal lifeways, the archaeology of children and the relationship between science, pop culture, and the media. She is the author of Growing Up in the Ice Age (2021).

Courses

Current projects

My new book Growing Up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children is the culmination of the last 15 years of research into the lives of Ice Age children. Winner of the 2023 EAA Book Prize.

My research in Paleolithic art includes fieldwork in Koonalda Cave, Southern Australia in conjunction with Traditional Owners. Thousands of years ago, people visited the cave and drew with their fingers in soft sediment covering its walls and  ceilings. We are studying these digital tracings  within a broader tradition of performative storytelling. This research is sponsored by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

For thousands of years, plants and animals including early humans moved back and forth along the Levantine corridor—a geographic region that connects Africa to Eurasia.

At the margin of this corridor lies the Azraq Basin in the Eastern Desert of Jordan, which previously had extensive spring-fed wetlands at its center.

These wetlands remained intact until the early 1990s when the combination of climate change and years of water overdraw led to desiccation of the springs. The two largest aquifer-fed marshes, Druze Marsh (DM) and Shishan Marsh (SM), collapsed shortly after, with only 10% of the latter marsh remaining despite restoration efforts and ongoing maintenance.

The dropping water table exposed abundant Paleolithic sites. Our initial excavations at these marshes suggest that the Azraq Basin was continuously occupied by hominins from at least 300,000 years before present (BP). 

Our new project aims to evaluate the Azraq Basin as part of an inland dispersal corridor for early humans expanding out of Africa and spreading across SW Asia and beyond. This will be accomplished by examining the relationship between fluctuating freshwater resources and hominin adaptation in the Basin between 400,000–40,000 BP.

Building on previous work, the project will entail targeted paleoenvironmental, geochronological, and technological analyses at key sites in the region, followed by comparisons with established records in the Levant to the west and central Arabia to the southeast. This research is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Neanderthal Sexual Behavior on “Betwixt the Sheets” podcast

 Dr. April Nowell’s TEDx talk

Selected publications